A fun and responsive top down shooter. Bizarre design choices and a weak story does not stop me whole heartedly recommending this game to anyone who likes this kind of thing. If you're a Halo fan you probably already own this. I would however advise buying this on a sale if you can help it as the games replay value is limited.

Now if MS would hurry up and get Halo over here on pc, that would be nice.

Elaborated version:

Halo Spartan Assault is a isometric top down shooter brought to you by 'Vanguard games', who holds reasonable pedigree, as they made the well received title 'Gattling Gears', another top down shooter. Originally made for Windows Phone, then ported over to Windows 8, then to both generations of Xbox consoles, then finally to Steam, which means it will run on anything. Basically you'll find this title on virtually any reasonbly current gen platform you can find.

From the very start, you can tell this is a ported mobile game almost instantly. Giant menu buttons and a small array of graphical and audio options are not unexpected for these types of game. However it doesn't make it any more excusable. This stuff does not belong on pc and, where I can forgive a smaller company the lack of attention to detail, this is f***ing Microsoft and Co!

Controlling your Spartan is easy. WASD keys will move your guy around, while aim and shoot with the mouse. Pretty simple. Everything here feels tight and responsive. Quite an achievement for a top down shooter, where many a time you'll find yourself struggling to control a slow and unresponsive character. Gameplay wise, this is about as good as you're going to get out of this genre. Good stuff!

Graphically, the game is very pleasing to the eye. It's by no means going to win awards. But it definitely has it's own style and charm to it. Everything here feels like Halo. Plasma grenades explode with a satisfying buzz Halo players will no and love, while the chatter of different weapons all feel hefty and interesting. One of Halo's greatest strengths is it's weapons variety and while it does taught some of the best weapons from the game, I was slightly disappointed they didn't include more weapon variety. Also, due no doubt to this being originally a Mobile game, some weapons are extraordinarily overpowered (The automatic rocket launcher for example) This completely breaks the tactical nature of the game, and really only limits you to a few weapons which you'll either start with at the beginning of the level, or by unlocking them XP points. None of the guns enemies drop are worth anything. And they'll more than likely get you killed if you attempt to use them on harder difficulties.

This brings me to another strange design choice the game has. Instead of paying for an advantage, on console and desktop versions of the game, you can simply buy OP weapons with XP points you earn by repeating levels. This to me, feels sloppy and hurried. Maybe I was expecting too much, but it would have been cool to have some kind of progression system to unlock more guns. It would have lengthened the games longevity somewhat also.

The story here is about as by the numbers as you'll get. Rookie Spartan Sara Palmer gets into trouble with the covenant. Davis, and her fight back and win the day. Pretty standard stuff. This is by no means going to make you fall in love with the Halo lore if this is your first outing of Halo. Which it very well might be,given MS's track record of releasing Halo games on PC.

One massive, and rather nonsensical issue I have with the game however is that MS has actually made the decision to strip the CO-OP mode out of the game entirely. Unless you own the game on Xbox One, (which I do) you wont be able to play with friends. Aside from the extraordinarily short sighted design decision to rip pieces out of the game so the Next gen port would look more favorable, I can't think of single reason to do this. This severely hurt the games fun factor as two players really makes this one of the best top down shooters out there.

Q: What is about?A: Heroes (Spartans) fighting against a special Microsoft's team (Covenants) to stop the developement of Windows ME for year 3000 (if you know Windows ME from 1999/2000 you know what I am talking about)

Q: Is it fun?A: You kill stuff and a lot of things goes boom and bzaak and puuf....yes is fun!

Q: Any sexy chick in this game?A: Yes....but with their armour on....PERVERT!

Q: Can I play sat upside down with a beer on my right and a piece of pizza on the floor that I will munch here and there during the gameplay and with a squirrel that will massage my feet?A: Yes you can thanks to the controller

Q: Is this the usual Halo?A: No it isn't...is not a story even...well it is....some sort of spin off before Halo 4....but the missions are pretty much linear and you will end in doing the same thing often.

Q: Will you be able to use huge space ships to nuke entire Worlds?A: NO....SHAME ON YOU MICROSOFT!

Q: Is this better than Cooking Mama?A: Depends...if you like to boil chickens, grill some hamburgers, cut some sausages and so on...you will probably not like this game.

Q: And what do you think?A: If you are looking for an Halo game...well this could be actually a good spin off that will add more info about the original story. The game is fun but still it is a bit repetitive. If you like gaming you will end in trying to get all the stuff (medals, achievements, objectives and so on) if you aren't you will get bored a bit easily.

Q: Something missing from this game?A: Co-op mode....shame for a game like this to not have Co-op for the story

I'm sorry the Halo game you really wanted isn't available for Steam. And yes this is a mobile port.

Now that part's out of the way, Halo: Spartan Assault is a fun little top-down twin-stick shooter and it's a great deal for its already low price (and an even better deal during one of the frequent 75% off sales). It's short, but I don't really see that as a downside, personally. As someone with a fairly short attention span at times (like the times when I am awake), I like that Halo: SA is a game that I can pick up and run through a level in a few minutes.

The graphics are nice, particularly since this started in the mobile sphere. I played using an Xbox 360 controller and I didn't find the controls awkward at all, though it did take a few missions for me to get the hang of things. The music's also really good. The story is pretty basic, but you're a recruit in training in some sort of Halo universe thingie, and you are using the game to re-enact the historic battles of some heroic spartan assault in some futuristic past. Probably this all makes great sense if you're already a Halo fan. What you get is a nice little series of missions in which you are some kind of badass futuristic soldier tasked with clearing enemies, escorting vehicles, holding strategic points, destroying heavy weapons, etc.

The enemies, weapons, power-ups, and the missions themselves are all varied enough that it keeps things interesting as you progress through the 30 or so levels. Surprisingly, there's also quite a bit of replayability, whether it's trying to get gold stars on each mission, going for all the achievements and medals, attempting missions with the "extra credit" parameters, farming for XP to buy upgrades, or playing with various handicaps (skulls) turned on. In addition, once you factor in the muliple difficulty levels and the ability to compare your scores to those of your Steam friends, you can easily play through several times.

Add nice Steam integration features (trading cards, achievements, leaderboards) and the only reason not to get this one is (apparently, judging from the negative reviews and threads I see) if you are too busy crying that Micro$oft didn't put the Halo game you really wanted to play on Steam.

This game was pretty fun, I'll admit. However, it has some really short levels, aswell as being left in the dust compared to its Xbox One port content. Halo: Spartan Strike is going to be a DIFFERENT game, not DLC or anything for this game (They both look like the same game, or is it just me :/ ). We need more Halo games on Steam, with surviving communities that COULD be saved if Microsoft wouldn't be so blind and stupid! They pay billions for Minecraft, but say no to putting Halo 1 and 2 on Steam, the two Halo games that already have been ported and could be added within what, a week/month? Microsoft could make so much more money from two very loved games without losing a ton of money, but they choose not to. Oh, I could rant for HOURS, I should just leave it at that.

Halo: Spartan Assault is a SPIN OFF game (why are people still comparing this to Halo: Reach?) Anyways, for me, it's a fun top down shooter to kill time. In fact, this game captures the feeling of playing Halo games.Grunts will panic like the cowards they are, Elites get pissed when you drain their shields, and let's not forget to mention the jihad grunts :3.

Overall, I recommend you pick this up if you want a casual arcade shooter with a Halo theme.

It's definitely not the Halo experience we were expecting for Steam or the PC, but in terms of the game itself, it's not too bad. Think of it as a top-down arcade game from the 80's, combined with the Halo lore. If you're a fan of Halo, you'll like it.

As a Standalone PC game, it's fair as long as what you are expecting is a glorified arcade game.

As a game in the Halo franchise, you can tell it was made by Microsoft instead of Bungie and that they're only after money at this point. Granted, no one should expect amazing depth or creative storyboards out of a mobile-port game, nor intensely long missions, which is why I listed that it was a mobile port first.

That said, the graphics are pretty cool, the interface is decent and the only bug I've run into is that it seems to conflict with the Windows transparency graphics. So, you start your game, begin a mission, and about twenty seconds into it, the game will minimize and Windows will say it no longer has enough resources, which is BS, some games just make this error and it will only do it once per session. The problem is that, from that point, the game is small and windowed unless you reset the resolutions settings in the main menu. So, if you are mid-mission, it will be like that until the end. If you've spent resources on that mission because it's particularly difficult and keep failing it, you will lost those resources if you retreat to the main menu to make your game big again.

It's important to note that this is a top-down shooter, which means that being one millimeter off in your aim ends up being three million miles of difference by the time your shot reaches the edge of the screen.

It's also important to note that this game has no concept of "multiplayer" or "firefight". It's strictly highly structured missions. So it's got about fifteen hours of missions and challenges before it starts to get old.

This game is a fun twin stick shooter with a good amount of content to play for only 5$. It keeps the halo graphic style looking good. The gameplay is fun if you enjoy twin stick games. The bad things would be that it has only a small amount of guns for you to use so the ones you have can get boring to use. but overall for the price it is a solid game and i hope to see some real halo games ported to pc in the future. 8/10

Honestly didnt know what to expect from what is basically an Iphone port but was surprised to find a charming game for a really good price. It is NOT a Halo game and if your expecting Halo 2 again you wont find it here.What you WILL find is a nice, top down shooter in a twin sticks style with decent graphics and half decent story. Its extremely satisfying to destroy everything and provides some challenge without over doing it for a more casual Halo experience.

This is a great game for any fans of Halo. It was a tiny bit disappointing, but its really fun. I never played Halo: Wars, so I didn't really know what to expect from a skyview Halo, but its a really good game! I recommend it heaps!

Let me start off by saying that Halo: Spartan Assault is not a "traditional" Halo game nor does it come close to the perfection of others in the series. But, nevertheless, it is a fun, solid game.

Aside from the movement and steering of some vehicles, which can get a bit sketchy at times, the controls are smooth and the gameplay gives a fantastic arcade feel to Halo. Considering the depth and magnitude of the story told throughout the rest of the Halo series, my only complaint about this game is that the story and connection to the characters simply is not there. This game is definitely more of a shoot-em-up type instead of an epic, emotion packed, story-teller such as the other Halos.

Despite all of the anger and ranting by Halo fans concerning the series not being brought to Steam which seems to be directed at this game, I actually really enjoyed it and for only 5 bucks I definitely got my moneys worth.

If you are considering purchasing this game, just keep in mind that it's very different from the other Halo titles and it certainly doesn't deliver the same experience, but it is a fun game and I can recommend it no doubt!

Its NOTHING like the other Halo games but still fun. The gameplay is fun, the graphics and effects are good, the controlls are a little confusing at first but you get used to them after a while. It has a decent sized campaign and its worth the $5. I recommend this game.

Lots of medals, achievements and other little challenges kept this little top-down HALO shooter running for me. There might have been some more weapons, enemies and mission types and also might have been co-op tho. Otherwise - simple gameplay, nice piece of Spartan stories, dem 0.99$ and 9 hours well spent!

Spartan Assasult Is An Amazing Game, If You Looking For A Fun Game With AR,SR, ETC This Is A Fun Game I Recomend That Everyone Should Give It A Try, If Your A Halo Fan Like Me Then Totally Get This Game It $5 This Game Is Also On The Windows Store An Android. Have Fun =D